While we didn’t bring our Make It Happen talents to the most recent night market, its always possible that we will make it happen at the next one. Meanwhile, I just signed up to volunteer at an art happening that will involve lots of interaction with perfect strangers, for an exhibition by a big white museum that shall remain nameless but that arguably resembles a giant white toilet. They’re looking for more volunteers, so email me if you’re interested.

More feedback today from a Make It Happen client, and frankly I’m not sure what to make of this. A client who uses a very distinctive name writes that his dream was to make “Artistic Pride” happen, by August 19 2010. He writes

“I think I got sidetracked by different pursuits and I’m unsure of what I really want to achieve most.”

I remember talking to this client, and at the time I remember not being entirely sure what artistic pride really meant. I think he meant that he didn’t take pride in the work that he was doing as a musician. I can’t help but think of an article I read in Wine and Spirits (stay with me …) about California Syrah producers who had stopped drinking the wines that they were making. Their wines were big, fat, hot, sweet, and clumsy. They didn’t like them any more, and finally one of them had the guts to make subtler, lighter, more interesting wines. Maybe this client has the same problem — he doesn’t like his own style. He needs to try something unlikely to be popular, something weird, and something he likes better.

My advice to this client is to drink some of the weird, funky, cloudy, iconoclastic wines that Joe Dressner imports, especially those from the Loire in France. Those wine-makers are definitely making art that makes themselves happy.

Feedback today from Make It Happen client Matt. Matt’s dream was to make “all is love” happen in the “not too distant future.”

As of August 5, 2010, Matt reports he is in the midst of making it happen.

He writes

Once the “Make it Happen” team clearly explained what the quantum guys and the Eastern mystics were/are talking about — All is nothing by vibrations, etc — I was able to let the past and future be content-like. Thanks, Matt.

Make It Happen is participating in the 2010 edition of The Swedish Dance History. Its a book, it is not particularly Swedish or historical, but it does take a broad view of dance. This includes what we do at Make It Happen and what our clients do when they make it happen.

We’ve given them a list of our former clients’ dreams, goals, and achievements, which will be published in the 2010 edition of The Swedish Dance History. (Without any clients’ names, of course!) And in awesome MIH style, the editors and publishers of The Swedish Dance History put the entire book together in one day at ImPulz Tanz, aka the Vienna International Dance Festival.

Check out this great video of them making last year’s book happen at ImPulz Tanz, which I believe has a shiny silver cover.

We met Make It Happen client Josephine Decker at Figment on Governor’s Island a few weeks ago and talked about the screenplay she wanted to make happen.

Last week, Josephine got in touch about applying the Make It Happen approach to something a little larger, namely the BP oil spill in the gulf. Josephine has created a performance piece about the spill which is taking place this week, Tuesday June 29 to Saturday July 3, 2010 in Times Square.

The piece involves dancers balancing buckets of oil on their heads (okay, its actually blackened water since oil is toxic). It also involves a Make it Happen element, with Josephine and her collaborators talking to pedestrians about what they can do about the spill, oil use, and climate change more generally.

Can individuals really make it happen for the environment? Does changing our personal habits work, or do we need to make it happen at a larger level, by working on policy, industries, and big organizational cleanup projects? Go to Times Square this week and talk about it with Josephine. Make it happen, make us proud!!

The range of clients and projects was fantastic, and somewhat different from our previous outings at Flux Factory and the Lost Horizon Night Market. Whereas those events were at night and attended mostly by artists and party people, Governor’s Island attracted a more diverse audience, including some downright normal folks.

But everyone has something that they want to make happen, and Saturday’s attendees were no exception. Things that people wanted to make happen this time around included:

– Becoming the skippers of a ship and sail in open water.

– Being a more disciplined actress.

– Reviving a business.

– Having more shared experiences.

– Finishing a film.

– Finding a partner.

– Making thanksgiving dinner in a stone house for friends and family!

– Finishing a film script.

– A prototype to redefine the transfer of knowledge and save the world.

– Mission statement for a theater company.

– Love!

It was a truly inspiring, energizing day. In fact we were so involved with people making it happen that we neglected to take any pictures of our cozy porch in Nolan Park. So if you’ve got photos, send them to us at makeithappen.tm@gmail.com.